A movie review of ​TRAGEDY GIRLS.

Comedy-horrors have two genres to get wrong if they don't get the alchemy right. But when it succeeds, the mix of laughs and scares/wincing is a double helping of pleasure. From SCREAM and TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL to DETENTION, these are the benchmarks. TRAGEDY GIRLS races to join them as a knowing spin on clichés plaguing the genre.

Opening on something out of ZODIAC, a couple are smooching in a parked car on a secluded bridge. Eerie noises have the guy on edge, only for the lady, Sadie Cunningham (Brianna Hildebrand - unrecognisable from her performance in DEADPOOL as Negasonic Teenage Warhead), goad him into checking out the unsavoury sounds of the night. Tension breaks when a machete slams into his skull. The masked assailant, something out of THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN, goes in hot pursuit of Sadie. Tables turned, roles reversed, as local serial killer Lowell (Kevin Durand) is blindsided by Sadie's best bud accomplice, McKayla Hooper (Alexandra Shipp, X-MEN: APOCALYPSE). The smooch dude was merely bait.​

​Sadie and McKayla (sadomasochism, geddit?) trap Lowell to learn from a community past master, to become lethal legends in their own right. They want to commit a murder spree before they graduate high school, as if they won't come of age without achieving serial killer status. Ego bruised, natch, Lowell is all bile-fuelled rage. He refuses to be their Yoda. By now, it should be dawning on an audience that these ladies have no need for a tutor.

Validation through social media followers and likes for their blog, "Tragedy Girls", is an obvious but droll commentary. Their conscienceless shenanigans, playing on fear and grief (a media swipe), and their self-obsession, should have made them poor company for 90 minutes, but their chutzpah and no-bullsh*t attitudes makes for charismatic leads.

Their target choices are petty: Anyone who steals their limelight. THE HUNGER GAMES, but only they know they’re playing. As cunning as Sadie and McKayla are, they are more opportunistic rather than adepts (at first). Murders are over-the-top gruesome. You’ll laugh and cringe simultaneously.

Annoyingly, as with the bromance subgenre, the two eventually fall out. This formulaic plot development is beneath the rest of the movie. In addition, proceedings run a little out of steam by the end. One gets the homage-y nature, but the climax is a little too CARRIE.

In an ocean of mediocre horror flicks, TRAGEDY GIRLS largely shows how it can be done.

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